Adventures in Kansas; April, Part 1

When our friends, Rich and Carolyn mentioned to us that they enjoyed road trips too, we invited them on our April Kansas adventure. Rich even offered to drive.


We began at 9 in the morning and spent the next 12 hours on a wonderfully, amazing trip to the Gypsum Hills in southern Kansas and a little wee bit into Oklahoma.

I ended up taking around 200 pictures!! I have weeded them out for the blog, and will post our adventure in several parts or days.

We drove to Wichita and off southwest on K-42. After passing Suppesville, we turned further southwest on highway 2.

We told Rich that we like to stop at historical markers. It wasn't long before Rich made a sudden turn off the road for our first marker.


What an interesting story! If you are a history buff, you can read more about Runnymede here.

We arrived at Harper and went into town. At the main downtown intersection of Central & Main, there is a fountain that has been restored. It served the citizens of Harper from 1909 to 1969. When it was originally presented to the town by a group of ladies, it cost $365. We were disappointed that it wasn't restored as a fountain. No splashing water here.

A sign read "The biggest fish in Kansas flies in Harper."

Leaving Harper on highway 160 west, we drove a little past Attica. Highway 160 makes a little curve north but the old highway turns off to the west. We got off on this road to go to the Attica cemetery.

Mr. Grigsby was an interesting guy...

...and a shirt-tail relative of Abe Lincoln.

Dearest brother thou hast left us
Here thy loss we deeply feel
But 'tis God that hath berefft us
He can all our sorrows heal.

Darling wife and mother no one knew her but to love her.

Rich made the comment that maybe they made the 2nd one smaller due to the economy. Ha!

We drove past Sharon, the home-town of Martina McBride. There we saw many fields that were bright yellow. We had to pull of to look at it. It smelled quite sweet.

Later on we found out that this was canola. Carolyn said that it is christened “Canola” from “Can” (for Canada) and “ola” (for oil low acid). I read that canola is a cultivar of either Rapeseed or Field Mustard. These fields did look like a field of mustard! Just beautiful!

Tomorrow I will post further about arriving in Medicine Lodge.